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January 15, 2016 CapitalPress.com Exports down but apple sales good overall By DAN WHEAT Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — Sale of the third-largest apple crop in Washington state history continues on pace into January with good prices holding while exports continue to decline. The total fresh crop is now estimated at 117.1 million 40-pound boxes compared with 141.8 million from the 2014 crop and 115 million in 2013. The second largest was 128.8 million in 2012. Season-to-date shipments total 43.6 million boxes on Jan. 10 compared with 51.9 million a year ago and 43.3 million two years ago. That’s decent movement that shows marketers are begin- ning to hold back, not pushing sales as hard, said Desmond O’Rourke, retired Washington State University agricultural economist and industry observ- er. The average price of all varieties remains at $24 per box, as it was a month ago, but without Honeycrisp it would be $21, O’Rourke said. The overall average for Gala is $23 per box and Red Delicious is in the $18 to $19 range, he said. The average asking price on extra-fancy grade, size 88 Gala was $30 to $34.90, mostly $30 to $32.90, per box on Jan. 11, according to USDA Market News. That was up slightly from $30 to $32.90 on Dec. 8 and up from $26 to $28.90 in November. Extra-fancy, size 88 Red Delicious was $16 to $20.90, mostly $18 to $19.90, up from $16 to $18.69 on Dec. 8. Other varieties at extra-fan- cy, size 88 on Jan. 11: Honey- crisp, $80 to $85.90; Cripps Pink, $32 to $36.90; Fuji, $28 to $30.90; Granny Smith, $20 to $24.90, mostly $20 to $22.90; Golden Delicious, $26 to $28.90. Exports are down 32 per- cent season-to-date, as of Jan. 10, compared with a year ago, O’Rourke said. A month ago they were down 28 percent. A smaller crop and stron- ger dollar reducing the buying power of importers in other countries are the chief reasons, he said. Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Com- mission in Wenatchee, last month said exports may end up about 20 to 15 percent of the crop this season instead of their usual 30 percent. Exports will probably total 30 million to 35 million boxes compared with 48.7 million from the 2014 crop, he has said. As of Jan. 10, 11.7 million boxes had been exported com- pared with 17.2 million a year ago. Russia remains closed to Western produce, but China is a bright spot at 679,562 boxes compared to 205,219 a year ago. China is open to all U.S. varieties, which it wasn’t a year ago. The U.S. Apple Association reported 129.3 million boxes of apples in storage on Jan. 1, down 16 percent from last Jan- uary and with 90.5 million of that being fresh market and 38.8 million for processing for juice, sauce and baked in- gredients. Red Bluff Bull Sale to celebrate 75th anniversary By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press RED BLUFF, Calif. — Organizers of this year’s bull and gelding sale here will kick off the week’s activities Jan. 26 by throwing a 75th anni- versary party. The 5:30 p.m. gala at the State Theatre in downtown Red Bluff will include a live band, refreshments and a vid- eo presentation of the early years of the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale, office secretary Marianne Brownfield said. The gala is among several special activities celebrating the sale’s milestone, which will also include added $7,500 cash prizes for a supreme bull and the top cow horse, Brown- field said. In all, 400 bulls, 100 geld- ings and 20 stock dogs are entered in the series of sales Jan. 26-30 at the Tehama Dis- trict Fair grounds. The bull auction is on the final day of a packed week that will also include trade and art shows, a kickoff breakfast, beef forums and seminars and a bull riding competition. “The art show and sale and the trade show are all full,” Tim Hearden/Capital Press Jon England of England Ranch in Prineville, Ore., washes one of his Hereford bulls at the 2014 Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale. This year’s bull sale will celebrate its 75th anniversary. Online Red Bluff Bull Sale Brownfield said. Amid a shortage of bulls in the west last year, bidders shelled out a record $1.56 mil- lion for 236 bulls that passed through the Don Smith Pa- vilion, paying an average of $6,594 per bull. At the 2014 sale, 319 bulls were auctioned after no-shows and sifting whittled the field, and win- ning bids totaled $1.038 mil- lion. The 67 geldings auc- tioned off in 2015 generated $639,600 in combined sales, three mules sold for a com- bined $14,350 and 16 working cattle dogs brought $83,500 in total sales. The sale has become one of the West’s biggest livestock events. Started by local ranch- ers as a way to boost their sales in a post-Depression environ- ment, the sale has evolved into a social event for families as well as a serious business trip for cattle producers. Thousands of people come to Red Bluff each year for the week of the sale, which features a trade show with as many as 160 businesses. Fifth-generation ranch- er Adam Owens, the great-grandson of founding member Roy Owens and the grandson of former sale president Bill Owens, took over as manager before the 2010 sale and has added sev- eral new features. Among them is a Western art show that has featured more than 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, silverwork and other forms of art competing for $1,000 prizes in several categories. This year’s bidding will begin with the eighth annual feeder and replacement heif- er sale on Jan. 28, as buyers online and in the pavilion will shop for cow lots shown on a video screen. Last year, about 80 lots were sold. Geldings and mules will be auctioned off in an eve- ning program Jan. 29 as con- signers try to compete for added prize money, which last year totaled more than $11,000. Working dogs will also be sold Jan. 29 after a couple of days of trial events. Indian ports Calif. rangeland growth slow despite steady winter rains reopen to The new fall growing season By TIM HEARDEN for grasses typically begins when foreign apples Capital Press the first significant rains start By DAN WHEAT Capital Press YAKIMA, Wash. — India has reopened its ports to foreign apples, which means Washing- ton shippers should be able to return to normal sales levels there. India announced the action Jan. 12 ending the closure of all but one port that began in September, said Chris Schlect, president of the Northwest Hor- ticultural Council in Yakima. “A case brought by im- porters in the area directly effected resulted in a court ruling the government didn’t have grounds to restrict trade,” Schlect said. “It’s very good news.” The ruling was a stay of government action and it may be open to appeal, he said. “It’s always helpful to have full access. You never like to see a country curtail trade to placate their domestic industry and do things outside the realm of law,” Schlect said. Normally, India is in the top five of Washington apple ex- port markets at about 5 million boxes annually. Last year, it im- ported 5.6 million boxes worth about $100 million. In apparent deference to India’s apple producers, the government closed ports in the southeastern part of the country in September to all foreign ap- ples. That left open only Nha- va Sheva, a main port on the western side of the country near Mumbai, formerly called Bom- bay. Transportation is such that Nhava Sheva can’t serve the entire country, Mark Powers, NHC executive vice president has said. As of Jan. 10, Washington had shipped 211,610 boxes of apples to India season-to-date, compared with 751,707 boxes at the same time last year, ac- cording to industry storage re- ports. Powers has said much of that decline was due to India’s large apple crop and a strong dollar reducing importers’ buy- ing power. He said the port clo- sure would become significant in coming months. SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Dairy producer Rebecca King is happy with all the rain that’s been falling in California’s Central Coast region over the last few weeks. “It’s great,” she said at a recent farmers’ market here. “We haven’t had any pasture so we’ve had to buy hay, which has gone up in price.” But while recent rains have improved pastures in some parts of California, more is needed to help with the ger- mination and development of foothill grasses and forbs, notes the National Agricultural Sta- tistics Service. King, owner of Garden Va- riety Cheese in Royal Oaks, Calif., is among most dairy and cattle producers who’ve had to supplementally feed livestock as range and pasture have strug- gled to recover after four years of drought. Development of rangelands has been slow in many areas because rains started too late in the fall to germinate grasses, said Josh Davy, a University of Tim Hearden/Capital Press Rebecca King (left), a dairy producer from Royal Oaks, Calif., talks with a friend, Gunther Gettelfinger, at a farmers’ market in Santa Cruz, Calif., in late December. King says she is hopeful that all the recent rains will improve conditions in her pastures. California Cooperative Exten- sion livestock adviser in Red Bluff, Calif. “It was already cold by the time (the rain) got going,” Davy said. “Once you drop below 50 degrees, it slows down a lot in production.” Winter rains do fill stock ponds, Davy said, and pro- ducers hope that the rains con- tinue in February and March when temperatures start to warm up. “If we can get some heavy rain, we should have a decent year from here on out,” Davy said. The germination and winter growth of forage grasses are only the first of distinct phases of forage growth, UC research- ers explain on a rangelands website. Rapid spring growth precedes peak forage produc- tion, the UC explains, so ample late-season rains are crucial to productive grazing lands. Green grasses in the late win- ter to late spring are key to the adequacy of beef cattle weight gains, the UC advises. germination of stored seeds. The timing of the so-called “break of season” dramatically affects forage production because ear- lier rains usually coincide with warmer temperatures, Davy and other researchers explain. A short winter growth period or none at all may occur if there is a late arrival of rains, in which case almost no new growth is apparent in the fall, the research- ers advise. Throughout the drought, producers have had to supple- ment feed with baled hay and grains, which has greatly in- creased their expenses and in some cases eaten into farms’ equity. With precious little grass available at lower elevations, the supplemental feeding has had to continue, Davy said. “Most everybody had to fig- ure out something because of a lack of early germination this year,” he said. “Most people just don’t have a choice with a lot of summer ground in mountain areas. It’s dictated that they need to come down here just to get them out of the snow.” Northwest ag, climate change grant extended By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press MOSCOW, Idaho — Sci- entists from Idaho, Oregon and Washington will have an extra year to complete their work on how climate change may affect regional cereal production, following the re- cent extension of a collabora- tive USDA grant. Researchers from Uni- versity of Idaho, Washing- ton State University, Oregon State University and USDA’s Agricultural Research Ser- vice in Pullman, Wash., start- ed work in May of 2011 on a $20 million, five-year grant titled Regional Approaches to Climate Change for Pa- cific Northwest Agriculture. Rather than requiring the re- searchers to return roughly $1 million in unspent funding when the grant ended, the sci- entists recently received per- mission to share the money among the four institutions to wrap up their projects by February of 2017. UI entomologist Sanford Eigenbrode, director for the REACCH grant, said their application was among several multi-year climate change and variability pro- grams funded under USDA’s program. Two other projects focused on agriculture fund- ed under the grant were also recently extended for an ex- tra year — one studying cli- mate change and Iowa corn and another researching how changing climate may affect pine plantations in 10 South- eastern states. Eigenbrode said the North- west REACCH grant has al- ready resulted in about 150 scientific publications. “I think we’re going to have a lot of publications in year six,” Eigenbrode said. Modeling conducted by grant researchers has found Northwest agriculture should fare better in the face of a changing climate than pro- duction in other regions, as warmer temperatures could potentially help yields in spuds, wheat and fruit. In the short term, he believes infor- mation from the grant will provide growers insight into topics such as diversifying cropping systems, improving sustainability of their systems, the efficient application of in- puts and conservation tillage. “The project has got just about every discipline you can think of from the agrono- mists, to the economists to the weed scientists,” Eigenbrode said. Eigenbrode said there won’t be nearly as much work ongoing as during the height of the grant, but the extension will allow some crop rotation- al studies to be finished, and give researchers time to final- ize publications. At the begin- ning of the grant, researchers surveyed regional growers on their beliefs about climate change, finding the majority have seen weather chang- es during their lifetimes, but most aren’t concerned about global warming, or convinced it’s caused by humans. The survey is being updated, and results should be available by late spring. During year six, a RE- ACCH grant-funded cere- als handbook, with about 14 chapters highlighting data from grant projects and other information pertaining to cli- mate and cereal production, will be produced for distribu- tion to growers. 15 Water battles will come to head in 2016, experts say By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press ORLANDO, Fla. — Bat- tles over water will likely shape agriculture’s legal landscape in 2016, with several high-profile lawsuits expected to come to a head over the next year, experts say. Aside from litigation over the federal government’s new “waters of the U.S.” rules, which critics say will greatly increase jurisdiction over private lands, farmers in the West are also fighting federal enforcement of existing regulations. In California, the Duarte Nursery is seeking to overturn a finding by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that switching from spring to winter wheat re- sulted in plowing activities that affected wetlands in violation of the Clean Water Act. In Wyoming, farmer Andy Johnson is challenging a finding by the U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency that construction of a stock pond unlawfully dis- charged pollutants into a stream without a Clean Water Act per- mit. Meanwhile, the U.S. Su- preme Court has agreed to re- view a case in which landown- ers want the right to contest a federal determination that their property is subject to Clean Wa- ter Act regulations. The mounting legal turmoil over water is occurring for several reasons, said Jonathan Wood, an attorney with the Pa- cific Legal Foundation proper- ty rights non-profit, during the American Farm Bureau Federa- tion’s recent convention. One reason is that land- owners can now dispute fed- eral “compliance orders” that require them to rectify alleged Clean Water Act violations or face steep civil penalties. Prior to a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, landowners could not challenge such compliance orders until the EPA brought a civil action against them seek- ing to enforce fines. The nation’s highest court, in a case known as Sackett v. EPA, found that com- pliance orders are government actions that can be fought in fed- eral court, which has embold- ened other landowners to chal- lenge the agency, Wood said. The problem is that land- owners still don’t have access to courts unless the EPA finds a violation, which is why the upcoming lawsuit over “juris- dictional determinations” is so important, he said. “It takes a lot of confidence to challenge the EPA over a compliance order,” Wood said. In that upcoming Supreme Court case, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, landown- ers want to fight determinations that they’re subject to the Clean Water Act, which are generally issued before the federal gov- ernment ever imposes a compli- ance order. Access to the court system when facing an adverse jurisdic- tional determination “means a lot if you’re a landowner that’s completely blindsided,” Wood said. While ordinary farm prac- tices such as plowing and stock pond construction are supposed to be exempt from the Clean Water Act, federal agencies re- interpret these exceptions nar- rowly to fit their agenda, said Danielle Quist, senior counsel for public policy at AFBF. In the case of Duarte Nurs- ery, for example, the EPA con- tends that the company fell outside this exemption because plowing at the depth of a foot constitutes “deep ripping” in vi- olation of the Clean Water Act, she said. “If that’s not plowing, then nobody is doing any plowing,” Quist said. Enforcement actions by federal agencies that farmers consider to be excessive aren’t likely the result of a conspiracy, but the vagueness of the Clean Water Act, said Wood. With the possibility of inter- preting the statute broadly, gov- ernment officials with envi- ronmentalist sympathies can impose their will with little fear of repercussions, he said.